The newest project is the dynamics of Galaxy Mergers. Once you register and login, you are presented with the Current Target of merging galaxies.Your task is to watch sample mergers played out dynamically and select one if it appears similar to the target. As the website makes clear:
This one takes a lot of patience. However, if you look at enough states, eventually you will get solutions that are close.
In the center of the screen is your target merger. When you click on “More”, eight new simulations will be run, one at a time in each box. The “Animate” check box in the upper right shows the actual collision, rather than just the end result. If none of the collisions look like the target, then skip them and click on “More” again.
If you find a collision that resembles the target, click on the simulation and it will be added to the “Selected Sims” panel on the right. Remember, not selecting a simulation is just as important as selecting one. It lets the Galaxy Zoo researchers know that a particular set of conditions will not produce the target merger.
Once you have found a candidate, you can refine the simulation. Click on the “Enhance” tab.
To the left is an image of the Enhance screen for mergers. First, select the simulation from the right hand panel (double click). Then, you can “Add More Stars” and watch the simulation at greater detailNow the fun begins. You can adjust the orientation of the simulation by click and hold on the image and drag. Although the target merger can only be seen from the orientation shown, the sim can be rotated in three dimensions.
There are a lot of variables to play with: Mass, Velocity, Depth, Size, Angles 1 and Angles 2. You can flip the galaxies. For a detailed description of these variables, see the instructions. Once you have the collision as close as possible, click on “Save Sim”.
Adjustments are tricky and even slight variations in a variable can produce wildly divergent results.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an infrared observatory, and a partial successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST does not view visible light because light from the earliest universe has shifted toward the infrared (red shift).
Infrared sensitivity is required in order to see further back in time toward the beginning of the universe than either Hubble or ground based observatories.The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint venture between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). In all, fifteen countries are making contributions to JWST.
The are four main components to the scientific mission:
Search for the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang
Study galaxies and their formation and evolution
Understand the formation of stars and planetary systems
Study the origins of life on planetary systems
JWST is scheduled for launch in 2014 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. It will take up residence at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (SEL-2). SEL-2 is 1,500,000 km beyond the Earth from the Sun (the Earth-Moon L2 is 61,500 km beyond the Moon). The location was chosen in order to be able to shield the telescope from the infrared radiation of the Sun and the Earth.
The image at left is a cutaway diagram the the Ariane 5 rocket, illustrating how the JWST will fold up inside the payload fairing. With the large screen behind it, the JWST will be about 21 m in width. It will stand about three stories high. The main telescope mirror, which measures 6.5 m in diameter, is too large to launch in one piece. Instead, it consists of 17 individual mirror segments mounted on a frame which will be folded inside the fairing of the Ariane 5 at launch.
Once it arrives at SEL-2, it will unfold, as this animation shows.
There are four instruments designed to conduct the investigations on board the James Webb Space Telescope:
Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI – provided by the European Consortium with the European Space Agency (ESA), and by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam – provided by the University of Arizona
Near-Infrared Spectrograph, or NIRSpec – provided by ESA, with components provided by NASA/GSFC.
Fine Guidance Sensor, or FGS – provided by the Canadian Space Agency. The FGS contains a dedicated Guider and a Tunable Filter Camera.
Credit: European Space Agency
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
The image at left shows the locations of the four instruments in the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Below, the image shows the location of the instrument package within the JWST.
The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is an imager/spectrograph that covers the wavelength range of 5 to 27 micrometers. The camera provides wide-field broadband imagery, and the spectrograph module provides medium-resolution spectroscopy over a smaller field of view compared to the imager. The nominal operating temperature for the MIRI is 7K. Additional information can be found at the MIRI website, Space Telescope Science Institute.
The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is an imager with a large field of view and high angular resolution. The NIRCam covers a wavelength range of 0.6 to 5 micrometers. More on NIRCam.
The Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) measures the simultaneous spectra of more than 100 objects in a 9-square-arcminute field of view. This instrument provides medium-resolution spectroscopy over a wavelength range of 1 to 5 micrometers and lower-resolution spectroscopy from 0.6 to 5 micrometers. See the Space Telescope Science Institute information on NIRSpec.
The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) sensor is used for both “guide star” acquisition and fine pointing. See information from the Space Telescope Science Institute about NIRSpec.
Recent Events
In October, the NIRSpec Engineering Test Unit (ETU) was completed by Astrium, and will be shipped to the United States later this year for integration testing. For additional information on the ETU, see this article in Space News. Integration testing will allow work to continue while the final NIRSpec instrument is developed. Along with the NIRSpec ETU, a test model of the other European instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will also be delivered.
See also:
The Wikipedia article on JWST. NASA home page for JWST. ESA home page for JWST. CSA home page for JWST.
Make your own Paper Model of the JWST.
YouTube and JWST.
Tomorrow morning at 4:31:20 PDT (Phoenix time), the Centaur upper stage of the LRO mission will impact Cabeus crater on the Moon. At 4:35:39 the LCROSS instrument package will impact the Moon, having recorded the Centaur impact with a variety of imaging and spectroscopic instruments.
What are we looking for? WATER. Worth its weight in gold.
Apophis, an asteroid discovered on 19 June 2004 during observations at Kitt Peak National Observatory, caused a media stir when an estimate from NASA was released on 23 December 2004 of there being a one-in-300 chance of hitting the Earth in 2029. This put it at a Level 2 on the Torino Scale. The next day, an update stated:
December 24 Update: 2004 MN4 is now being tracked very carefully by many astronmers around the world, and we continue to update our risk analysis for this object. Today’s impact monitoring results indicate that the impact probability for April 13, 2029 has risen to about 1.6%, which for an object of this size corresponds to a rating of 4 on the ten-point Torino Scale. Nevertheless, the odds against impact are still high, about 60 to 1…
Over time, the risk level has gradually been lowered as additional measurements have been made. As early as 3 February 2005, NASA ruled out a collision in 2029 (Friday the 13th, April), when it would come no closer than 36,350 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. However, this still left open a possible encounter in 2036.
Now, observations made by the 2.3 meter (90-inch) Bok telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, along with measurements from the Arecibo Observatory on the island of Puerto Rico have been combined with observations by Dave Tholen and collaborators at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy in Manoa. The previous estimate for 2036 was one-in-45,000, The new refined estimate is one-in-250,000 (6 times less likely).
…the asteroid is expected to make a record-setting — but harmless — close approach to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, when it comes no closer than 29,450 kilometers (18,300 miles) above Earth’s surface.
Between 1,000 and 1,500 children and parents stopped by between 10 AM and 3 PM to ask questions, collect trading cards, copies of the Ad Astra magazine, coloring sheets, stickers, decals, bookmarks, photographs and fact sheets from the members. Activities included making soda straw rockets and mission patches. Around a hundred soda straw rockets were built and launched.
The Challenger Space Center in Peoria brought out their Liquid Nitrogen demonstrations, the Dry Ice Comet, Freeze Dried Ice Cream and the Space Helmet Activity.
Stephen Hawking called for a massive investment in establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars in a lecture in honour of NASA’s 50th anniversary. He argued that the world should devote about 10 times as much as NASA’s current budget – or 0.25% of the world’s financial resources – to space.
The Ares I processing continues toward a 27 October 2009 launch. Descriptions of progress and problems can be seen here.
For a very detailed view of the lunar surface from the LRO mission, check out this image.
For folks looking for tidbits on space exploration, add NSS Phoenix Space News page to your RSS feed.
This coming Saturday, 3 October 2009, at Christown Mall (Bethany Home Road and 19th Avenue), the Phoenix Chapter of the National Space Society will hold a brief meeting (12:30 PM) in conjunction with The World At Night exhibition. Christown Mall opens at 10:00 AM. The exhibit and chapter meeting will be near the Costco store.
Three articles in Science Express were released yesterday, 24 September. They detail evidence for water from three different Lunar missions:
Deep Impact
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on Chandrayaan-1
Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on Cassini (1999)
These are summarized by A Lunar Waterworld by Paul G. Lucey at Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii, 1680 East West Road, POST 504, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
“Space-based spectroscopic measurements provide strong evidence for water on the surface of the Moon.”
1 University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
2 Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Marseille, France.
3 Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.
“The Moon is generally anhydrous, yet the Deep Impact spacecraft found the entire surface to be hydrated during some portions of the day. OH and H2O absorptions in the near infrared were strongest near the North Pole and are consistent with <0.5 wt% H2O. Hydration varied with temperature, rather than cumulative solar radiation, but no inherent absorptivity differences with composition were observed. However, comparisons between data collected one week (a quarter lunar day) apart show a dynamic process with diurnal changes in hydration that were greater for mare basalts (~70%) than for highlands (~50%). This hydration loss and return to steady state occurred entirely between local morning and evening, requiring a ready daytime source of water group ions, which is consistent with a solar wind origin.”
Character and Spatial Distribution of OH/H2O on the Surface of the Moon Seen by M3 on Chandrayaan-1
C. M. Pieters 1*, J. N. Goswami 2, R. N. Clark 3, M. Annadurai 4, J. Boardman 5, B. Buratti 6, J.-P. Combe 7, M. D. Dyar 8, R. Green 6, J. W. Head 1, C. Hibbitts 9, M. Hicks 6, P. Isaacson 1, R. Klima 1, G. Kramer 7, S. Kumar 10, E. Livo 3, S. Lundeen 6, E. Malaret 11, T. McCord 7, J. Mustard 1, J. Nettles 1, N. Petro 12, C. Runyon 13, M. Staid 14, J. Sunshine 15, L. A. Taylor 16, S. Tompkins 17, P. Varanasi 6
1 Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
2 Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, India.; Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, India.
3 U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO 80225, USA.
4 Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, India.
5 Analytical Imaging and Geophysics, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.
6 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
7 Bear Fight Center, Winthrop, WA 98862,USA.
8 Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075, USA.
9 Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723–6005, USA.
10 National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, India.
11 Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, Herndon, VA 22070, USA.
12 NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
13 College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA.
14 Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719–2395, USA.
15 University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
16 University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996–1410, USA.
17 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, VA 22203, USA.
“The search for water on the surface of the anhydrous Moon remained an unfulfilled quest for 40 years. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on Chandrayaan-1 has now detected absorption features near 2.8-3.0 µm on the surface of the Moon. For silicate bodies, such features are typically attributed to OH- and/or H2O-bearing materials. On the Moon, the feature is seen as a widely distributed absorption that appears strongest at cooler high latitudes and at several fresh feldspathic craters. The general lack of correlation of this feature in sunlit M3 data with neutron spectrometer H abundance data suggests that the formation and retention of OH and H2O is an ongoing surficial process. OH/H2O production processes may feed polar cold traps and make the lunar regolith a candidate source of volatiles for human exploration.”
“Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on Cassini during its fly-by of the Moon in 1999 show a broad absorption at 3µm due to adsorbed water and near 2.8µm attributed to hydroxyl in the sunlit surface on the Moon. The amounts of water indicated in the spectra depend on the type of mixing, and the grain sizes in the rocks and soils but could be 10 to 1,000 parts per million and locally higher. Water in the polar regions may be water that has migrated to the colder environments there. Trace hydroxyl is observed in the anorthositic highlands at lower latitudes.”
Norm Augustine, Michael Griffin and Vice Admiral Joe Dyer USN (Ret.) testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology. And walked into a hornets nest of unenlightened criticism. Typical was the whining from Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of AZ, who released a statement. She wanted the Commission to do a detailed evaluation of the Constellation program, but added “We have a glancing attention to Constellation, even mentioning it in past tense.”
The chairman, Rep. Bart Gordon from Tennessee, as reported by the New York Times, employed the fallacious “sunk costs” argument to defend Ares I:
“I think that good public policy argues for setting the bar pretty high against making significant changes in direction at this point,” said Representative Bart Gordon, Democrat of Tennessee, who is chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology. “There would need to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over these past four years.”
Former Administrator Michael Griffin defended the Ares program, deflecting Commission concerns about the rocket’s problems with the request for more money. Pay no attention to the rocket behind the curtain. Pay no attention to the thrust oscillation problems that would shake the walls and bring down the curtain. Pay no attention to the underpowered rocket that cannot lift the curtain.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
This was a friendlier and much better informed session. Sen. Nelson from Florida and Sen. Hutchison from Texas started with praise for Augustine.
Augustine then noted that the Commission was tasked with options, not recommendations. This had been repeatedly noted by those that have followed the three month deliberations, but needs repeating. He said the next obvious destination is Mars, but that is not possible for safety and financial reason. Then he observed that the Goals and Funding are out of whack. Keeping them as they are would mean:
“If we continued on the path of the existing program, we would have to launch six shuttles in the next 12 months. One could question if that is a safe thing to do.
“No funds for Space Station and Technology. We’d have to deorbit ISS in five years from now after spending 20 years building it. We’d complete Ares I two years after the Space Station was deorbited.
“The Heavy Lift launch capability would be delayed to the mid to late 2020s – and when we got it there would be no upper stage to put on it or Lunar hardware to launch on it. That would be delayed to the 2030s. That is the path we are on.”
The remainder of the session explored the various options, returning again and again to the “Flexible Path” or deep space option, with several variations. The emphasis was on commercial crew transportation to low Earth orbit and a return by NASA to exploration. Near Earth Objects (NEO), the Lagrange points and space observatories, building and deploying propellant depots and Phobos as a destination were all explored, as well as the necessity of avoiding deep gravity wells like the Moon and Mars until experience, technology and funding allow.
Political Reality
Behind the scenes and away from the public reassurances to local constituencies by the Senators on the Committee contained in the “questions” to Mr. Augustine, the political realities that shape the space exploration business are working on the new directions.
PWR Rocketdyne will appreciate additional business for its Space Shuttle Main Engine if an SDLV is built. The SDLV is almost a foregone conclusion if the Space Shuttle Program is extended beyond 2011.
While the proponents of Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) such as Space-X and Orbital Sciences make their case to the politicians, other groups are also working on the future NASA direction. One of these groups is the Direct team, which has proposed a complete exploration architecture (also here) that knits together the political considerations discussed above.
Possible Outcomes
Given the political background to the conundrum of the NASA mission and budget, one might foresee one of three possible outcomes:
Abandonment of Human Space Flight beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The Space Shuttle would be extended to complete its manifest in 2011. The International Space Station (ISS) would be extended to 2020 (or beyond). Purchase of American astronaut rides to the ISS would be on Russian Soyuz rockets.
Endorsement of the Commercialization of Space Flight with a reduction in NASA’s role to a procurer of services on bid and contract, and a modest increase in the budget. This would correspond to the UAL proposal discussed here on NSS Phoenix, where many competitors in addition to UAL would compete for the business NASA has up for bids.
A full blown commitment on the part of the United States to maintaining its historical preeminence in space exploration. LEO operations would be contracted from commercial entities. A Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle would be contracted out to UAL / ATK / PWR (who already operate the facilities where the Space Shuttle components are built and assembled), and would close the gap to ISS resupply until commercial vehicles came on line. These SDLVs with a Centaur derived upper stage would be capable of NEO missions, Lagrange point (EML-2 and SEL-1 and SEL-2) space observatory missions, and Phobos and Deimos missions. Certainly enough to gather the requisite space faring skills to begin contemplating permanent stations within the deep gravity wells of the Moon and Mars. This third outcome satisfies practically all of the political forces in play.
Post your thoughts on the outcomes in the comments section.
Credit: NASA Video
Credit: NASA
